Quick Facts - Visual Spatial Deficit
By Hali and Kevin
A visual spatial deficit is the inability to interpret, organize, analyze, or synthesize the spatial components of a visual message in the absence of visual impairment.
Characteristics:
Initially:
Poor handwriting or artwork
Mapping or graphing abilities are weak
Almost Always:
Difficulty with depth perception and measurement
Appears to be clumsy
Often:
Loses place when reading and skips important details
Reading level is below average
Uses finger to keep place when reading, has difficulty matching letters and figures in correct spaces (letter and number matching activities)
Difficulty locating specific words in dictionary or texts
Difficulty perceiving spaces and punctuation in written language
Pushes the wrong numbers on calculator or phone
Sometimes:
Difficulty with time concepts or with passage of time
Poor organization of papers
Misconceptions:
Students with a visual spatial deficit are often perceived as clumsy. They often bump into things, "miss" their seats and fall down, or place things at the edge of tables causing the items to fall. These are caused by the student's difficulty with visual-motor integration, or the ability to use visual cues to guide their movements. This might teachers and classmates the impression that the child lacks social, athletic, and academic abilities. The child often suffers because of these misconceptions. As teachers we should be aware of these misconceptions and do what we can to minimize the consequences by making adaptions to the curriculum and making accommodations for the student.
Accommodations for individual student:
Have the student use outline format or visual organizers
Encourage the use of a word processor
Have the student use colored overlays when reading
Encourage cursive rather than manuscript to reduce reversals, inversions, etc., A peer helper, volunteer, or parent may assist with this task.
Have the student use graph paper to assist in lining up numbers on a page,
Reduce the number of assigned questions, but retain the level of difficulty
Provide oral testing or a scribe
Allow blank visual organizers to be brought to a testing situation, and evaluate these organizers if the student does not have time to translate the organizer to written form
Accept point-form answers
Allow calculator for math activities
Limit the amount of visual information presented on the student's test page
Consider alternative methods, other than a written test, of checking for understanding of a concept
By Hali and Kevin
A visual spatial deficit is the inability to interpret, organize, analyze, or synthesize the spatial components of a visual message in the absence of visual impairment.
Characteristics:
Initially:
Almost Always:
- Difficulty with depth perception and measurement
- Appears to be clumsy
Often:Sometimes:
Misconceptions:
Students with a visual spatial deficit are often perceived as clumsy. They often bump into things, "miss" their seats and fall down, or place things at the edge of tables causing the items to fall. These are caused by the student's difficulty with visual-motor integration, or the ability to use visual cues to guide their movements. This might teachers and classmates the impression that the child lacks social, athletic, and academic abilities. The child often suffers because of these misconceptions. As teachers we should be aware of these misconceptions and do what we can to minimize the consequences by making adaptions to the curriculum and making accommodations for the student.
Accommodations for individual student:
Resources for additional information
http://www.volusia.k12.fl.us/psych/vis-spathink.htm
http://www.ldonline.org/article/6390#anchor520397
http://www.childd.org/docs/Strategies/Visual-Spatial%20Relationships.pdf
http://www.salisbury.nhs.uk/InformationForPatients/patientleaflets/occupationaltherapy/a4visualspatialrelationships.pdf
http://ldsupport.homestead.com/VisualSpatialRelationships.html
http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/learning/spatial.shtml
http://www.nldontario.org/articles/VisualSpatialDiversity.html
http://www.schoolbehavior.com/conditions_nvld.htm
Curricular modification